]]>When I moved to Asheville, NC at the beginning of the year, I was excited to start getting to know the area’s farms. I’d been working on Project Grounded’s Carbon Farm Map long enough to take special notice when farms express a commitment to something beyond organic methods — specifically, to building healthy soil.

Chrysalis Earth Farm, owned by farmers Candace Anthony and Justin Ellis, stood out from the crowd because of their no-till farming practices. All summer long, my family and I have been enjoying their weekly CSA box of fresh, flavorful veggies. During this time, I’ve also gained something else that should be the birthright of everyone who eats food: getting to know the people who grow my food.

Justin and Candace moved to their farm three years ago, after many years of apprenticing on other farms and extensive study of herbalism. Everyone knows that starting a farm is incredibly hard work, but for this couple, there was the added intensity of a newborn: their son, Sequoia, was born on their second night on the farm, and has been present every day of the farm’s journey.

Ecological agriculture

If you go to the Chrysalis Earth Farm website, you’ll see that they describe their farming methods as “ecological agriculture.” As Candace explains, “When people at the farmers’ market ask us about our growing practices, I usually say, ‘We’re not certified, but we don’t even use the pesticides that the organic certification allows.’ I often want to add ‘We don’t even till!’ but most people don’t seem to really know why that would matter.”

Justin adds that the decision to go no-till arose from “working on organic farms and seeing the problems with it – specifically problems with tilling and the erosion it causes.” Heavy tilling kills the beneficial microbial life in the soil, degrades the soil’s structure, and causes the valuable topsoil to erode. This is not merely an ecological concern, but an economic one: many conventional farmers realize that they are simply not seeing the yields they were seeing a generation ago. They find that herbicides and pesticides not only don’t work, but that they are killing soil fertility.

At this point, Candace and Justin feel that they could not farm in any other way: “It’s out of necessity,” Justin says. “There’s no real other choice if you actually want to have a farm that’s going to be around in 20 years.”

No-till practices

What does “no-till” then mean, in terms of their farming practices?

The first few beds Candace and Justin dug by hand. As the farm has grown, they have discovered more effective techniques. They use goats and solarizing to help clear the land for new beds, then use a walk-behind tractor to break the ground and shape the bed. In other words, they do plow to initially shape the beds; but unlike the rototiller, which tills the soil deeply, the rotary plow turns it over and helps to shape the bed without destroying the soil structure.

But no-till alone is not sufficient to make a farm’s soil building program successful. Mulching the beds has turned out to be a second, and equally necessary, step. Candace and Justin use no-spray hay and wood chips to keep the beds deeply mulched.

“Mulching has great benefits because you can keep carbon in the soil. You have active composting happening. If you add microbes or nutrients to your soil, they’re not going to dry out or run out,” Justin says. “And then you produce healthier, more abundant plants,” Candace adds.

Going forward, they also want to grow cover crops, then roll and crimp them to use the cover crop itself as mulch.

Hemp: Healing and Beyond

This year, Chrysalis Earth Farm has begun a new endeavor: growing hemp for CBD oil. Justin and Candace are excited about hemp, and not simply because it is a cash crop — which brings more stability to the seasonal farmer finances — and not even because of its medicinal qualities. Hemp is making a serious comeback as one of the most multi-purpose plants that exists. You can make medicine out of it, you can make clothing out of it, you can build houses out of it, you can make fuel and oil out of it. In a world polluted by petroleum-derived products and overrun by plastic waste, hemp is a promising alternative, and Justin and Candace are excited to be a part of that revolution.

In the future, they also want to incorporate more perennials in their growing systems: they already have hazelnuts and rhubarb growing, and want to add more. Being trained in herbalism and natural health, they are also growing medicinal herbs such as Ashwagandha, elecampane, and Echinacea, and would like to find a way to offer them to their customers that makes sense at a small scale.

As someone who has been eating from this land for months now, I can say that whether it’s food or medicine, whatever comes from this land is healing. And it’s most likely because the farmers have been doing the hard work of healing the soil first.

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/farmer-story-chrysalis-earth-farm/feed/02021Making the Climate-Beneficial Apron Dresshttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/making-the-climate-beneficial-apron-dress/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/making-the-climate-beneficial-apron-dress/#respondMon, 30 Jul 2018 20:47:33 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1967Sometime in the near future — when food items on your grocery store aisles will start to bear the label “Regeneratively Produced” — look closely at the tags on clothing at the clothing stores, too. I bet that we’ll start to see something similar there, too: a label that reads “Regenerative” or “Climate-Beneficial.” Because just as food …

]]>Sometime in the near future — when food items on your grocery store aisles will start to bear the label “Regeneratively Produced” — look closely at the tags on clothing at the clothing stores, too. I bet that we’ll start to see something similar there, too: a label that reads “Regenerative” or “Climate-Beneficial.”

Because just as food can be grown in ways that build healthy soil and sequester carbon underground in the process, so can fiber, and therefore textiles. Think hemp, flax, or cotton fields managed in ways that build soil organic matter. Think sheep and other fiber animals living on pastures where carbon farming methods are practiced.

If you can sew or knit your own, that day has already arrived: You can purchase yarn or cloth made out of wool certified as Climate-Beneficial Wool by Fibershed, the California non-profit developing regional and regenerative fiber systems, and create a unique garment or an entire wardrobe from regenerative sources.

This is what I did. This is the story of the “Climate-Beneficial” apron dress I made this summer.

Fibershed’s Community-Supported Cloth program allows customers to purchase a unique wool cloth woven out of wool from Lani Estill’s Bare Ranch, the first certified Climate-Beneficial fiber farm. (We dove deeper into this program in an earlier post.) The cloth was produced as regionally and sustainably as possible. When you pre-pay to reserve yardage of this uniquely produced cloth, that investment helps to cover the manufacturing costs and fund further Carbon Farm implementation work.

As soon as I heard about this initiative, I knew I wanted to be a part of supporting it. I placed my pre-order already last year, and in June the long-awaited package finally arrived: 3 yards of gorgeous Community-Supported Cloth.

With fabric as unique and precious as this, you don’t just start randomly cutting the fabric and sewing something (which, I admit, is how I’ve begun many sewing projects before). This time, it had to be just the right garment, and it had to be done right. After a lot of indulgent research and dreaming, I settled on the Maria Wrap Apron by Maven Patterns. A wraparound apron dress — also called a Japanese maker’s apron —was something I’ve long wanted to have in my wardrobe. And here was the perfect fabric and the perfect opportunity.

Sewing the apron was my evening project for about a week this July. I held my breath as I started cutting out the pieces after laying the pattern pieces carefully onto the cloth. Thankfully, all the pieces came together.

And here — after almost a year of planning on my part, and many years on the part of Lani the fiber farmer and Fibershed’s network — is my finished Climate-Beneficial Apron Dress:

The apron dress is perfect: at once flattering and really comfortable. I love the versatility of this design, too: the apron can be worn with a skinny t-shirt and leggings, or maybe with jeans or a skirt underneath.

Though a bit thick, the Community-Supported Cloth worked beautifully for this project: it’s firm and solid, yet descends beautifully towards the hemline.

Last fall, Fibershed organized a Climate-Beneficial Fashion Gala in California, showcasing garments designed by local clothing designers using the Community-Supported Cloth. It looks like I’ll be having my own one-person Climate-Beneficial Fashion Gala right here on the streets of Asheville, NC!

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/making-the-climate-beneficial-apron-dress/feed/01967Baking and cooking with Kernzahttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/baking-cooking-kernza/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/baking-cooking-kernza/#commentsMon, 12 Mar 2018 16:16:22 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1902These last couple of weeks, our kitchen has been the scene for lots of baking and cooking experiments with the new perennial grain, Kernza®. I admit I’ve been unapologetically geeking out about sourcing a part of my diet — a big part, grains — from regeneratively managed soils. We introduced Kernza in an earlier post. It’s a …

]]>These last couple of weeks, our kitchen has been the scene for lots of baking and cooking experiments with the new perennial grain, Kernza®. I admit I’ve been unapologetically geeking out about sourcing a part of my diet — a big part, grains — from regeneratively managed soils.

We introduced Kernza in an earlier post. It’s a new grain variety developed by The Land Institute in Kansas, a perennial cousin of the familiar wheat. Because it doesn’t have to be replanted again each year but can grow back from the same root system, it develops thick, dense roots, which hold soil in place and store massive amounts of carbon into the soil.

In other words, here’s a grain that can be grown in a way to restores and builds soil. Good news for those of us for whom bread, pasta and baked goods are among the joys of life!

While you won’t (yet!) find Kernza-based products on your grocery store aisles, you can order some milled flour from Plovgh, the distribution partner of the Land Institute, and make them yourself.

A good way to start with Kernza is quick breads like pancakes, waffles, and muffins. In these kinds of more forgiving doughs, you can substitute 100% Kernza for wheat or other flours.

For bread baking success, it’s best to combine Kernza with regular wheat flour because of Kernza’s lower gluten content. The tip from the pros at The Perennial in San Francisco, who have Kernza bread on their menu, is to use 1/3 Kernza and 2/3 wheat flour. With that ratio, I’ve started to have a lot of success with these early loaves of Kernza bread.

The breads I experimented with are the simple no-knead breads that I make often. By far the simplest is the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day — a foolproof simple bread that you can really make in five minutes a day. The Kernza version (pictured above) was SO incredibly tasty, especially straight out of the oven and with plentiful dollops of butter on top.

My second experiment was a No-Knead Bread adapted from Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery that involves a longer process of about 24 hours. With 1/3 Kernza flour and 2/3 whole wheat flour, the loaf came out rustic and satisfying.

Kernza’s flavor has been described as “grassy.” I would maybe say “hearty” or “earthy.” Apparently, the deeper root systems of Kernza can reach down to the subsoil and tap into nutrients that are not as available to the short-rooted annuals, and this affects the flavor. A bread with a unique terroir, in other words.

Homemade Kernza pasta

1 cup Kernza flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp salt

3 eggs

Mix the flours and the salt on the counter and shape them into a mound. Make a little “volcano” in the mound and break the eggs into it. Start mixing with a fork and slowly integrating the egg and the flour. Don’t worry if some egg escapes onto the counter, just bring it back in. The dough will come together. When it holds together as a ball, start kneading it with your hands until it’s smooth. Wrap in plastic or beeswax wrap and set aside for 30 minutes.

When the dough is ready, make about 6 balls the size of a small lime and start rolling them through the pasta machine. (A rolling pin will do the trick, too.) At this point, you can make your desired thickness and shape of pasta.

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/baking-cooking-kernza/feed/61902Nutrient-dense foods and regenerated soilshttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/nutrient-dense-foods-regenerated-soils/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/nutrient-dense-foods-regenerated-soils/#respondFri, 16 Feb 2018 16:17:53 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1873Promoting regenerative agriculture — farming practices that restore depleted soils and hold the promise of slowing down climate change — is often framed as one of those things that we human beings can and should do for the sake of the environment. For sake of the planet. To heal the Earth. But frankly, that’s not …

]]>Promoting regenerative agriculture — farming practices that restore depleted soils and hold the promise of slowing down climate change — is often framed as one of those things that we human beings can and should do for the sake of the environment. For sake of the planet. To heal the Earth.

But frankly, that’s not on most people’s priority list. For many people, healing the Earth is a nice idea, but they have much more pressing and immediate concerns that directly involve themselves. Such as, how to be happy and healthy — how to maximize one’s well-being in an increasingly complex, busy and toxic world, with rising health care costs.

Well, I’m going to make a bold statement here: supporting regenerative farming is not just Earth care, it’s self-care. If you’re not going to do it because it’s good for the planet, do it because it’s good for YOU. By buying and eating food grown on such farms, you’re investing in your own health and vitality, and the benefits can be immediate.

Our current food culture is obsessed with wellness and nutrition. “Nutrient-dense” and “superfood” are the buzzwords among those who have the discretionary income to follow food trends. Whether they’re eating Paleo, gluten-free, vegan, high-carb, low-carb, organic, or are religiously devoted to green juices, everyone’s keen on getting the most bang for their buck — finding the ingredients or the combinations that will up their nutrient intake, boost their vitality, reduce inflammation, and so on. The same desire is fueling the multi-million dollar supplement industry.

The obsession with finding the next trendy superfood or miracle supplement has been sparked, in part, by the disconcerting reports that the nutrient and vitamin content of food is going down worldwide. This is at least in part due to modern chemical farming methods, which have stripped the soils of their minerals and nutrients. These mineral deficiencies have been linked to specific health issues, such as teenage depression,ADD, and autism. Yes, we have reason to be concerned.

But what if the true superfoods are not the next trendy tropical leafy green or exotic berry? What if the true superfoods — the foods that will truly improve your health — are simply any foods grown in or on healthy soil?

In other words, what if rejuvenating depleted soils is actually the best way for us to rejuvenate ourselves?

Many still assume that organic food is automatically optimal for health. Yes, organic food has been shown to have less pesticide residue and fewer antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But organically grown food is not necessarily more nutritious than conventionally grown. “When researchers have looked at the impact of organic systems on both soil quality and food nutrient levels, they have found that they often fare no better than conventional farms,” writes Daphne Miller, M.D., in her book Farmacology (p. 49).

Where we do see a direct correlation is between the food’s nutrient content and soil health. Not all organic farms are necessarily improving soil health; many of them are in fact large monocrop farms and routinely till the soil, which kills the soil microbiology. If we focus on farms that are improving soil health — building humus (soil organic matter) and the amount of carbon in the soil — we start to see some startling evidence of improved nutrition. Miller’s Farmacology beautifully demonstrates this connection between farm ecosystem health and human health, weaving together stories from regenerative farms and interviews with doctors and scientists.

Why is soil health important for human health? There’s actually a really intimate connection between soil and the most intimate, innermost part of humans — our gut. More and morestudies are showing the key role that our gut health plays for some of our biggest health issues. Depression, behavioral problems in kids and adolescents, cancer, asthma and allergies, and various immune system dysfunctions are just some of the issues that have been traced to the imbalance of our gut microbiota. Essentially, we don’t have enough “good bugs” in our systems. Our modern, predominantly urban, overly hygienic, anti-bacterial, over-medicated, sedentary lifestyles and the kind of diet characteristic of such lifestyles — excessive sugar, processed food and not enough fresh produce — have shifted our gut biomes away from the desirable kinds of “probiotic” species, and towards what Daphne Miller calls “the Homer Simpson bacteria”: the kinds that thrive on refined flour, sugar, and processed food.

But here’s the exciting part: you can start shifting your internal environment. You can start today. You do it by changing your food and where you source it from. We need more beneficial microbes in our guts, which means we need more of them in our food, which means we need more of them in our soils which grow the food.

And that’s where regenerative farming comes in.

Regenerative agriculture is a pretty new term for farming practices that specifically build healthy soil. Like organic farming, regenerative skips the chemical fertilizers and pesticides. But it goes beyond organic in that it, by definition, returns nutrients to the soil and builds up soil organic matter (humus). Regenerative farmers recognize that their primary assistants in this task of soil-building are the beneficial soil microbes and fungi, which help to create humus . That’s why they follow farming practices that don’t destroy these soil organisms, but on the contrary help them to thrive: not tilling the soil, intentionally managed intensive grazing of livestock, integrating annual and perennial crops (or plant crops and livestock) on the same land, and applying compost rich with beneficial micro-organisms. When these micro-organisms flourish in the soil, they make nutrients more available to plants, which in turn makes them bioavailable for humans.

So if you really want to eat food that’s optimal for your health, skip the trendy, overpriced superfoods and supplements, and instead eat from regenerated soils. Here are four key principles to follow:

Look for regenerative farmers in your area and start meeting some of your weekly food needs through them. Depending on where you live, you can find fresh produce, grassfed and pastured animal proteins, fruit and nuts, or even no-till grains. Our Carbon Farm Map is a good place to start if you’re in the U.S.

Don’t scrub or peel your produce too compulsively! You’re getting rid of the part that’s best for you (the peel and, yes, little bits of dirt – the kind that’s good for you).

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/nutrient-dense-foods-regenerated-soils/feed/01873Exploring Regenerative coffee with Cooperative Coffeeshttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/regenerative-coffee/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/regenerative-coffee/#respondMon, 22 Jan 2018 17:26:58 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1798Those of us who are are serious about our coffee are usually VERY serious about it. We want it brewed a certain way. We want to drink it by a particular hour of the day. Many of us feel strongly about whether it should be enjoyed with milk and sugar or not. But there’s a …

]]>Those of us who are are serious about our coffee are usually VERY serious about it. We want it brewed a certain way. We want to drink it by a particular hour of the day. Many of us feel strongly about whether it should be enjoyed with milk and sugar or not.

But there’s a deeper reason to be selective about our coffee — and it has little to do with that perfect froth on your morning latte.

I recently had a chance to chat with Monika Firl of Cooperative Coffees, a pioneering green cooperative coffee importer that’s setting the standard for climate-conscious coffee production and consumption. Much like wine, coffee is a complex product affected by almost everything that touches it along the way, from the location and climate and the soil in which the coffee plant grew, to the variety of the plant, and finally to the way the coffee was stored, roasted, blended — and brewed!

Cooperative Coffees works with small-scale farmers who are organized as cooperatives, helping them have access to fairer markets. They import coffee from farmer cooperatives in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia to North America and distribute it to their roaster-partners in the US and Canada.

Image: Coop Coffees

“My reason for being in coffee is farmers,” says Monika. Indeed, Coop Coffee’s commitment to the coffee farmer partners is clear from the project work they do on-the-ground among producer communities, organizing farmer trainings and exchanges and supporting regenerative land management projects, such as reforestation, on the coffee farms.

Coop Coffee is now wrapping up the first year of its Carbon, Climate & Coffee Initiative. In this initiative, the roaster-partners in North America pay a small “carbon tax” on the green coffee beans they purchase from Coop Coffee, and these funds are then used to continually replenish Coop Coffee’s project fund.

Image: Coop Coffees

If coffee is discussed at all in connection to climate change in mainstream media, it’s because of growing concerns that climate change will critically affect the world’s major coffee growing areas. It’s been estimated that 50% of coffee production regions will be unsuited for coffee cultivation by 2050. The farmers Coop Coffees works with are already seeing the adverse affects of extreme weather events, and diseases such as leaf-rust, on their fields and crops.

But Coop Coffees and the farmers they work with are offering a more positive lens to look at the coffee-climate connection: if grown regeneratively, coffee farming could in fact help to mitigate climate change. This happens because regenerative farming practices help to build the organic matter content and microbiology in the soil, which then boosts the soil’s capacity to pull down carbon from the atmosphere.

Monika describes one eye-opening farm visit to Honduras in 2013 at the peak of the leaf-rust crisis, when most farmers were witnessing total devastation in their fields. But one of them, Oscar Omar Alonzo Aguilar, still had lush and healthy-looking fields, and was getting a high-quality coffee crop from them. What had he had differently? He had simply focused on improving soil organic matter and microbiology: “Increasing the quantities of organic matter, strengthening the quality of his compost with locally produced, beneficial bacteria and fungi […], spraying compost teas to cover vulnerable leaf surfaces, and mulching with water-logged coconut husks to support soil life with stable humidity,” Monika lists Oscar’s ecologically beneficial practices. That was enough to make the coffee plants resilient enough to resist the disease.

Together with its partners such as Grow Ahead and Taking Root, Coop Coffees is expanding their capacity to organize farmer-to-farmer trainings, tours, and exchanges to help train more and more farmers in such regenerative techniques.

Image: Coop Coffees

So, dear coffee drinker, you may be asking what you can do to ensure that your daily cuppa has a beneficial impact on ecology, farmer livelihoods, and climate? Apart from looking for the “fair trade” label, just buying shade-grown coffee makes a big difference, Monika says. (Coffee is naturally shade-loving — it’s a shrub and thrives as the understory of taller-canopy agroforestry systems.)

Ideally, the coffee would also be grown regeneratively. For finding such coffee, the roaster-members of Coop Coffee are an excellent bet. But in addition, soon the subscribers to our monthly Grounded Goods boxes will get to enjoy regeneratively grown and sourced coffee delivered to their doorsteps — a collaboration with Coop Coffees and its roasters that we’re really excited about.

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/regenerative-coffee/feed/01798Farmer Story: Spoon Full Farmhttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/farmer-story-spoon-full-farm/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/farmer-story-spoon-full-farm/#respondMon, 18 Dec 2017 17:23:44 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1734In early 2017, five young farmers joined together to realize a dream that had been in the works for many years. Five people, each coming to the conclusion that our current agriculture system is broken and in need of repair, ready to commit to each other and to a beautiful piece of land in the …

]]>In early 2017, five young farmers joined together to realize a dream that had been in the works for many years. Five people, each coming to the conclusion that our current agriculture system is broken and in need of repair, ready to commit to each other and to a beautiful piece of land in the Kittitas Valley…

We had gotten in late, well after the sun had gone down on a short February day. We had been moving slow for the last fifty miles on snow-covered roads. Two packed-full cars caravaned at what felt like a snail’s pace, slowed even further by the anticipation of what was about to begin.

After pulling up to the farm house, Michael and I went in search of snow shovels. We had no intentions of sleeping outside, and the snowbank around the entrances to the house were piled high. A half-hour later, our cars were in the garage and we sat down to enjoy our first dinner at Spoon Full Farm.

That night, we couldn’t have hidden our excitement even if we wanted to. Mesmerized by the amazing opportunity we had and the near-limitless potential for a 240 acre piece of property with senior irrigation rights, we excitedly discussed the possibilities the future may hold, and all the potential good we could do: for the land, for the soil, for our community, for our health, and for our planet. We went to bed with our hearts racing with enthusiasm.

We woke up the next morning and had a very short through-the-wall conversation:
“Sam!”
“I see them!”

The herd of over 100 elk were nibbling on the ornamental plants in the yard, mere feet from where our heads lay. A few, in fact, were nibbling on the house itself.

We got up and walked around the house. The herd was distributed in a circle, surrounding the house on every side. At some point they noticed us, and didn’t seem bothered by our presence.

The awe-inspiring silence Michael and I shared still remains vivid in my memory. A good first experience of daylight at our new home.

Today, 10 months later, the elk are back with winter coming once again. But this winter, contrasting the wilderness of the Yakima river, the elk herds, bald eagles, coyotes, great-horned owls and Canadian geese, is Spoon Full Farm, equipped with a greenhouse, an acre of no-till vegetable gardens, 22 cattle, 20 sheep, 300 chickens, two dairy goats, four dogs, two cats, one llama, and five humans.

Our first season has wrapped up, and we’ve taken major steps to develop food production systems on what was once a conventional hay farm.

The cooperative, production-diverse regenerative farm has been a dream of mine ever since I first spent a summer farming over five years ago. The synergy offered by diversity yields incredible benefits. Multi-species management-intensive grazing benefits our no-till vegetable system through the compost we’re able to produce. Raising honeybees improves our orchard pollination, and the ability to add value to our produce in a commercial kitchen minimizes inventory loss.

On top of all that, this enterprise diversity allows for a specialization that makes each pillar of our farm likely to succeed. Each enterprise is micro-managed by a single individual, allowing for a nuanced approach. We are doing many things, but are not spread too thin because each individual can remain focused on one main task.

When it comes to marketing, a shared farm label makes it easier to move product, as well. We first entered the market with incredibly tasty produce, thus beginning to build ourselves a reputation. As we bring more and more new products to market, those new products have a ready foundation and a customer base. We are moving towards the one-stop farm shop model, and in 2018 will add grass-fed beef, pasture-raised eggs, and canned, preserved and processed vegetables to our current lineup of grass-fed lamb, wildflower honey, and fresh vegetables.

“Loyal to Soil”

While our business structure gives us excellent market access, it really is our practices that set us apart from conventional farms or commercial organic farms.

Our slogan says it all: we are Loyal to Soil. Fundamentally, we encourage healthy soil. In turn, that healthy soil provides us with nutrient-dense and delicious food.

We encourage soil health by taking several steps which contrast drastically with large-scale agriculture. The first is that we never till the soil. When farmers till their soil, they powerfully turn it, diminishing overall soil structure and killing trillions of soil microbes which are the foundation for a healthy soil ecosystem. Soil is different from dirt because it is alive. And we can’t grow healthy food in dirt.

We also avoid synthetic fertilizers and pest-control sprays of any kind, even organic. Pesticides don’t discriminate — they kill pests but also beneficial insects. Nature’s diversity within complex ecosystems creates self-balancing systems. With these self-balancing systems, we can minimize external inputs which themselves have a major ecological footprint.

So, on our farm, we are committed to building a diverse ecosystem- both above and below ground. We graze with multiple species (cattle, sheep, goats, llamas and chickens), we are planting a widely diverse network of hedgerows and orchards that will be of commercial value while also providing “ecosystem services” (such as food and habitat for pollinators and predator insects) and we build healthy soil by keeping our soil whole and by feeding it (with compost).

The result is a highly productive farm, producing particularly delicious and nutrient-dense food, actually building soil and improving ecosystem diversity, and capable of supporting the livelihoods of the farmers who work and live there.

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/farmer-story-spoon-full-farm/feed/01734Full Circle Wool: Climate-Beneficial Wool Beddinghttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/full-circle-wool/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/full-circle-wool/#respondMon, 11 Dec 2017 14:40:28 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1593As we’re entering the winter months in the Northern hemisphere, it’s the perfect time to really enjoy all that keeps us cozy and warm. And now there’s a Climate-Beneficial way to snuggle up on cold winter nights! Today’s post is an interview with Marie Hoff from Full Circle Wool, a small company based in Northern …

]]>As we’re entering the winter months in the Northern hemisphere, it’s the perfect time to really enjoy all that keeps us cozy and warm. And now there’s a Climate-Beneficial way to snuggle up on cold winter nights! Today’s post is an interview with Marie Hoff from Full Circle Wool, a small company based in Northern California and creating amazing organic pillows and comforters out of Climate-Beneficial Wool.

In Marie’s own words,

Full Circle Wool connects designers with mindfully farmed, regenerative wool products, sourced directly from local producers implementing carbon farming practices for carbon sequestration. Full Circle Wool is based at hand made studio, in Bodega, CA.

Here’s our interview:

Tell me a little about your business. Who is Full Circle Wool?

I started Full Circle Wool in 2016, with an initial purchase of the year’s wool from two ranchers in Marin County who were implementing carbon farm practices. I wanted to support these ranches in their work, and to link the wool product that resulted from a landscape operating under a Carbon Farm Plan with the public. The goal is to link the productivity of our working lands with the consumer needs of the people, bringing our economy back to dependence on local agriculture as opposed to petroleum. I looked at the links in the chain of a Soil to Soil system and saw a big missing piece at the point of processing. We have grassland, and ranchers with sheep, and raw unscoured wool, and designers and crafters, and consumers… But no one taking the wool from unscoured to a form that’s usable by designers and crafters so that it can continue in the supply chain. So Full Circle Wool seeks to fill that void and bring the wool to the public.

How did the idea for Full Circle Wool originate?

I started learning about sheep and wool 5 years ago, in 2012. I was coming from an urban background. So I had to learn from the beginning about what it takes to raise sheep in California, what breeds make sense in which areas, what kind of wool comes from each breed, how to shear, where the wool is milled, and the natural history of the area along the Sonoma coast I had moved to. I also learned how the current economics make it so that most coarse wool on the coast doesn’t generate a profit, even though it’s a valuable natural material. So I wanted to be a link in the chain so that ranchers could make profit from the work of raising wool, and that designers and crafters could have a local, natural material to use.

What’s the process like for creating bedding like this?

First I get the wool scoured and carded into sheets of batting. The batting is what is used as the inside stuffing for the comforters and pillows. At this time there are no scouring mills in California that can process a high volume of wool, so until we get one, I use the scouring mill in Texas. My hope is that by making the locally-grown wool available and popularizing it, demand grows and investors decide its worthwhile to put their money in a California large scale fiber mill. So for now the wool goes to Texas, is washed, and then returns to California where it’s carded in Union City. Then it comes to my studio in the town of Bodega (which is about 10 miles from the ranches the wool was grown on), and I contract my friend and local seamstress, Bonnie, to sew the batting into comforters, using organic cotton to encase the wool.

Full Circle Wool is a part of an “enterprise ecosystem”: you, Marie, also run the Capella Grazing Project, and organize workshops through Hand Made Studio. How do these enterprises work together?

Yes, I found I had too many enterprises actually, I can’t do everything! So instead of hand made studio, the name of the studio space is now just Full Circle Wool. We did classes for a little over a year, and it was really fun and popular, but I decided to take a break from organizing the classes. There are many fiber classes in the area, with both West County Fiber Arts and Fiber Circle Studio, as well as workshops at Windrush Farm and any number of others listed on the Fibershed calendar and at yarn shops like A Verb For Keeping Warm.

Capella Grazing Project is my own endeavor in land management and raising sheep. We raise and steward a rare heritage breed called Ouessant, which is a great breed for grazing in vineyards and orchards. It’s not their wool that’s in Full Circle though, we are so small scale it’s really a different focus. For enterprise ecosystem, I would focus more on the way Full Circle Wool seeks to be a link in the local agricultural economy and community — we work with ranchers, designers, crafters, and local shops. We all benefit from each other, it’s really about making the Soil to Soil system work with all of our enterprises working together.

When you sell Full Circle Wool products at farmers’ markets, how do you explain to people the concept of regenerative, even climate-beneficial wool? Do you find that it resonates with people, or that they get the idea?

Yes, farmers’ market shoppers are very interested and supportive of healthy agriculture. They are really searching for just this kind of thing, not only for their food but also for their clothing and bedding and other material needs. I honestly don’t find they really have the attention to understand carbon farming in detail, but when I say it measures and builds soil health, they are interested. They are most interested in it coming from local farms, and the health aspects of undyed wool (antimicrobial, antifungal, naturally moisture-wicking, temperature regulating, biodegradable). Sometimes someone really wants to nerd out and I end up talking about grassland lifecycles and how we use sheep and cattle to mimic the effects that deer and elk and other native herbivores once had, and that the grasslands co-evolved with for millions of years.

What’s next for Full Circle Wool? How do you see this enterprise evolving in the future?

I’d actually really like to pull back from doing as much retail or even production beyond the wool batting, and just be the one link in the chain from unscoured wool to batting. Instead of modeling what kind of products are possible and selling finished products, I’d like to see a whole host of designers and companies and craftspeople utilizing wool batting. And then as demand for wool batting grows, I can focus on seeking out more ranches that want to implement carbon farming, and help them get their carbon farm plans going by sourcing their wool and by using the percentage of return to the Fibershed’s Carbon Farm Fund (10% of sales go to this fund) to fund implementation of practices. People are still realizing you can source locally-grown wool batting at all, so there are many designers who are thinking about what they would make.

So I’d like to see more usage of wool batting in a wide variety of endeavors and enterprises, and work on getting more ranches carbon farm plans and getting a higher volume of Climate Beneficial wool coming from these lands into the hands and homes of people who will use it to keep warm and clean and comfortable. And then compost it, returning nutrients to the soil.

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/full-circle-wool/feed/01593Regenerative gift-givinghttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/regenerative-gifts/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/regenerative-gifts/#commentsFri, 08 Dec 2017 17:52:46 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1650It’s been a year of impressive momentum-building for the regenerative movement. Just take a look at the incredible exposure and excitement around the release of Josh Tickell’s book Kiss the Ground in November — it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. More and more people are starting to get it that healthy …

]]>It’s been a year of impressive momentum-building for the regenerative movement. Just take a look at the incredible exposure and excitement around the release of Josh Tickell’s book Kiss the Ground in November — it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. More and more people are starting to get it that healthy soil, human health, and a livable climate are intimately connected to each other. People are hungry for a climate solution that’s positive and empowering, helps us to solve a ton of other planetary problems simultaneously, and is directly connected to one of our primary pleasures and needs: food. And here it is. The hashtags #LiveRegeneratively and #RegenerativeLiving are gaining ground.

But what about #GiveRegeneratively and #RegenerativeGiving? Can our excitement about soil and ecosystem regeneration carry over to how we approach the holiday season — and specifically, gift-giving?

We think so! In that spirit, Project Grounded brings you a little guide to holiday gifts that support the regeneration of the earth’s living systems. (And no, we’re not just talking about buying more “ethical” or “eco-friendly” products.)

Give a gift that challenges the consumerist norm

We can’t create a regenerative world without re-examining our relationship to material things and, specifically, the mindset of consuming for the sake of consuming. What a lot of people don’t realize is that there are alternatives to the madness of Christmas consumerism that still retain the joy, the spirit of generosity, and the enjoyment. Joshua of The Minimalists, for example, says that even as a minimalist, he still enjoys in participating in the holidays, but

“I now give gifts of experiences, charitable donations, or, if I give material goods, I give consumables, such as a bottle of wine or a bag of coffee from a local roaster. It must be something someone can use, or, if it’s an experience, it’s a memory that can be shared, from concert tickets to an evening of watching the sunset together.”

Another great anti-consumerist gifting guide from Eco Warrior Princess suggests growing a gift, making a gift yourself or — like the Minimalists — gifting an experience or your time.

Give a Tree

More roots in the ground is a good thing! And a tree = lots more roots. From a tiny sapling to a full mature-canopy grandmother, each tree is an effective carbon pump — we couldn’t possibly plant too many of them.

Make a donation in your giftee’s name to a tree planting or forest conservation organization. Treeera‘s low-cost monthly subscription helps to plant trees to offset climate change & reduce your carbon footprint. $20/month plants 200 trees on your giftee’s behalf annually, $12/month plants 100 per year. Or make a gift donation to The 1 Million Redwoods Project on Kickstarter. For The Wild is planting millions of trees, native plants and fungal companions to mitigate climate change and rapid species loss.

Give a gift that supports regenerative land management

Make a donation in your loved one’s name to one of the organizations below. STEAL THIS: Here’s what you can write on your (100% post-consumer recycled) Christmas card to them: “I love you, and I love this Earth that supports both of us. My gift to you is supporting farmers who are doing right by nature while helping to preserve the Earth’s living systems.”

Kiss the Ground: keep all that inspiring, informative media coming to make “regeneration” a household word in the US!

Regeneration International: your donation supports the promotion of regeneration worldwide, from education and policy to consumer campaigns and connecting the world’s regenerative projects together in a hub

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/regenerative-gifts/feed/21650Designing Resilient Communities and Landscapes: The 13th IPC in Indiahttp://projectgrounded.com/blog/designing-resilient-communities-landscapes-13th-ipc-india/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/designing-resilient-communities-landscapes-13th-ipc-india/#respondSun, 03 Dec 2017 15:30:54 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1601This past week, I was one of about 1200 people from 63 countries who gathered in Hyderabad, India, for the 13th International Permaculture Convergence. Permaculture is a system of ecological design that seeks to create human settlements that have the stability, productivity, and resilience of a natural ecosystem. It’s rooted in the observation of natural …

Permaculture is a system of ecological design that seeks to create human settlements that have the stability, productivity, and resilience of a natural ecosystem. It’s rooted in the observation of natural ecosystems and seeks to find ways to meet critical human needs — food, water, shelter, energy etc. — in a way that’s not only sustainable, but regenerative and restorative.

So the goals of permaculture are actually very much aligned with those of Project Grounded (and it’s not an accident that both myself and Sam, the team at Project Grounded, are trained in permaculture design).

At a time when most of the news we hear seem to be bad news, it was incredibly uplifting to be surrounded by 1200 people all motivated to work to turn the tides on this little planet of ours. To manage landscapes and communities in a way that also recharges ground water, improves food security, builds healthy soil, mitigates drought and flood, protects biodiversity, and makes for happier, more equitable, more resilient communities.

And this is not just theory; it’s happening. Over the course of the week, permaculture practitioners from all over the world presented on the impressive projects and solutions they’re working on in their communities. Here are some of the ones I got to learn about:

and my own presentation on “A Climate-Beneficial Wardrobe: Regenerative Fiber Farming,” which led to some wonderful conversations throughout the week!

After two days of the conference in the city, about 500 of us traveled to Polam Farm in the rural area outside of Hyderabad for an additional 5 days of workshops, demonstrations, and discussions. We all slept in tents and the sessions took place in thatched-roof buildings next to vegetable gardens. The organizers had done an incredible job ensuring that this was a minimal-waste, minimal-impact event: much of the food was harvested on-site, all food waste was composted, all toilets were composting toilets, the water from the outdoor showers drained into a fruit tree orchard. All the signs were biodegradable, not plastic as is the norm — mostly woven palm-leaf mats. It’s really possible to organize an event, even at this scale, with minimal waste!

One of the highlights of the week was learning about traditional village skills: pottery, blacksmithing, basket-weaving, herbal medicine, seed saving, cow milking, spinning cotton by hand… Truly wonderful examples of a “grounded” life!

Finally, one really exciting development for me personally was getting involved in the Climate Change group of the newly forming Permaculture CoLab. CoLab will be building on the momentum from the Convergence event and act as a hub for all of us to exchange information and move the most effective solutions forward in the next few years.

I don’t think I’m the only participant returning home with many new friends now in my network and with re-ignited inspiration, resolve, and motivation. Thank you IPC India!

]]>http://projectgrounded.com/blog/designing-resilient-communities-landscapes-13th-ipc-india/feed/01601Conscious consumer on a limited budget? Read this.http://projectgrounded.com/blog/conscious-consumer/
http://projectgrounded.com/blog/conscious-consumer/#respondMon, 06 Nov 2017 17:38:18 +0000http://projectgrounded.com/?p=1535There’s a perception that being a conscious consumer, or making sustainable lifestyle choices, is a bit of a luxury. In our recent survey, about half of all respondents cited money as one of the main reasons why they don’t live as sustainably as they would like to. In fact, one of the main criticisms in …

]]>There’s a perception that being a conscious consumer, or making sustainable lifestyle choices, is a bit of a luxury. In our recent survey, about half of all respondents cited money as one of the main reasons why they don’t live as sustainably as they would like to.

In fact, one of the main criticisms in the thought-provoking Quartz article published earlier this year, “Conscious Consumerism Is a Lie,” was that being a sustainable consumer seems to be reserved only for the privileged:

“The sustainability movement has been charged with being elitist—and it most certainly is. You need a fair amount of disposable income to afford ethical and sustainable consumption options, the leisure time to research the purchasing decisions you make, the luxury to turn up your nose at 95% of what you’re offered, and, arguably, a post-graduate degree in chemistry to understand the true meaning behind ingredient labels.”

(For some equally thought-provoking responses to the Quartz article, see here and here.)

There is a lot of truth to this statement. I know many people who would like to buy a responsibly manufactured item from an environmentally and socially responsible company, but who simply feel priced out from the ethical consumer marketplace.

Most of us probably know that the cheap counterparts from big box stores or Amazon are usually manufactured cheaply in faraway places (often China), by companies that employ people in deplorable working conditions and are certainly not eager to make their processes transparent and their products traceable. We know it and feel bad about it, and would like to consume differently. But the price tags on “ethical” or “eco-friendly” goods — the kind that are beautifully featured on sites like The Good Trade — seem unrealistic for many people. And so they keep going for the cheap junk made in China, and continue to feel bad about their impact.

No, I can’t make ethically and responsibly produced goods suddenly cheaper. I doubt anyone can, if we still want to pay a fair wage for the persons who made the product. But I’m going to stand by this:

the #1 money-saving trick for an aspiring conscious consumer is not cheaper responsibly-produced products — it’s a mindset shift. You don’t need to buy more ethically manufactured goods to be a mindful consumer; you just need to consume less.

Sustainable consumer choices are expensive if you remain in the throw-away-and-buy-again mindset of consumerism that’s pushed on us by market forces from the moment we are born. We live in a world where some people experience the social pressure to renew their entire wardrobe, for example, once a year (if not once a season). Fun statistic: according to Overdressed, the average American woman buys 64 new items of clothing per year. This same logic of “fast fashion” applies to gadgets too: buy, use, discard, buy again, use, discard…

But let’s at least admit to ourselves that that’s a lifestyle choice — a decision to give into certain social pressures — and not a necessity.

A true shift to sustainability — or, better, to the kind of beyond-sustainable, regenerative lifestyle that we at Project Grounded promote — involves an honest assessment of our true wants and needs. If we all started shopping according to our true needs, we would buy fewer items per year. Maybe just one.

And then first look into what’s available used, at second-hand or consignment shops.

And only then, if you really can’t find what you need pre-owned, purchase new — and make it a real investment. Look into how the item was made. Buy durable and high-quality, even something that can become an heirloom. Take really good care of it, and if it breaks, repair it.

For after all, an ethically manufactured item of clothing that costs $150 is not any more expensive than ten cheaply made poor-quality items of $15 each. And we all know which choice is likely to be wearable for many, many years.

But here’s where things get interesting — and hopeful. I invite you to try this out as an experiment. It’s been my experience, and I’ve heard more than one person echo it, that once you start investigating how our everyday products are made and learn the true impact of your choices, you reach a point where you actually can’t bring yourself to buy the irresponsibly produced stuff anymore. Or at least not as often. Because it’s so hard to find goods that actually do good in the world, you simply buy less. (“My husband is very happy about this,” Daniela Ibarra-Howell joked at the Savory Institute’s Consumer Revolution event last year.)

And when that compulsive urge to constantly buy new is not indulged, gradually it starts to loosen its hold on us, you have some space to breathe, and you see that you actually don’t need a new [insert item here] anyway. As a result, you save money. In this way, becoming a picky sustainability snob may actually be the best thing that ever happened to you — or your wallet.